up for such brutality.
And yet somehow he resented this very attitude which seemed to him
completely justifiable. Surely he was not too monstrous (morally) to be
looked at frankly sometimes. But no! She wouldn't. Well, perhaps,
some day... Only he was not going ever to attempt to beg for
forgiveness. With the repulsion she felt for his person she would
certainly misunderstand the most guarded words, the most careful
advances. Never! Never!

It would occur to Anthony at the end of such meditations that death was
not an unfriendly visitor after all. No wonder then that even young
Powell, his faculties having been put on the alert, began to think that
there was something unusual about the man who had given him his chance
in life. Yes, decidedly, his captain was "strange." There was
something wrong somewhere, he said to himself, never guessing that his
young and candid eyes were in the presence of a passion profound,
tyrannical and mortal, discovering its own existence, astounded at
feeling itself helpless and dismayed at finding itself incurable.

Powell had never before felt this mysterious uneasiness so strongly as
on that evening when it had been his good fortune to make Mrs Anthony
laugh a little by his artless prattle. Standing out of the way, he had
watched his captain walk the weather-side of the poop, he took full
cognizance of his liking for that inexplicably strange man and saw him
swerve towards the companion and go down below with sympathetic if
utterly uncomprehending eyes.

Shortly afterwards, Mr Smith came up alone and manifested a desire for
a little conversation. He, too, if not so mysterious as the captain,
was not very comprehensible to Mr Powell's uninformed candour. He
often favoured thus the second officer. His talk alluded somewhat
enigmatically and often without visible connection to Mr Powell's
friendliness towards himself and his daughter. "For I am well aware
that we have no friends on board this ship, my dear young man," he would
add, "except yourself. Flora feels that too."

And Mr Powell, flattered and embarrassed, could but emit a vague murmur
of protest. For the statement was true in a sense, though the fact was
in itself insignificant. The feelings of the ship's company could not
possibly matter to the captain's wife and to Mr Smith--her father. Why
the latter should so often allude to it was what surprised our Mr
Powell. This was by no means the first occasion. M